My turtle and red worms...

Question
I have a Red eared turtle. My husband and I were cleaning his tank, and replaced his filter cartridge, and noticed that there were alot of tiny little red worms. They looked like they had attached themselves to some of the tiny shrimp that we normally feed our turtle from time to time.
We replace his filter every week, and wash his tank out at the same time, he also has a few feeder fish in the tank with him, but we are not too sure if maybe they could be associated to that problem.
We are desperately wanting to find out more of this bacteria, to prevent it from happening again.


Answer
They are probably an actual worm, not a bacteria. They could have come from the turtle, fish, or shrimp- all can carry parasites, especially if wild-caught.

You can do this the cheap way or go to the vet.

The cheap way is to toss the other animals and disposable items, scrub and disinfect the tank- using a bleach/water mix and letting it stand or at least 10 minutes or longer, let everything air dry (ideally in strong sunlight), then rebuild.

The other way is to take the tank to a vet and have them figure out what the worms are and how to treat them.

There are two glitches to the cheap way- the first is that the parasite eggs may survuve the cleaning (it may take a few sessions to wipe out all the eggs), and if the worms are from the turtle, they might recur.